Pride and Penance
by HopeCoppice
Summary: Bertrand will do anything to make Vlad forgive him. B/I. Het, don't like don't read. Nothing beyond a little innuendo.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm back! And more awesome than ever. Anyway, here's an old one about one of the very few ways I can see this pairing actually coming about.**

**Disclaimer: YD is still not mine, despite my best efforts.**

"You betrayed me, Bertrand. You kidnapped my girlfriend and stole my book." Vlad was angry, it was obvious. He had every right to be. Bertrand, for once in his life, was going to grovel.  
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. I'll do anything I can to make it up to you." The Chosen One considered that for a moment, a thoughtful expression forming on his face.

"You're on your last warning," he said at last. "and if you really want to help me, you'll help Ingrid. I know she's felt isolated in the past but we should all be on the same side now. I need someone to look after her." Bertrand nodded, rising from his kneeling position on the floor. "And Bertrand, if you betray _her_, you will have both of us to answer to." It was unlikely that he would survive such a reckoning.

Ingrid, of course, was no fool. "We're on buddy duty, then, are we? Traitors together?"  
Bertrand shrugged. "Vlad seemed to think you might be lonely." He realised he'd misphrased it as soon as her eyes narrowed.  
"And he's trying to set us up, is that what this is?" She paused for a moment. "Well, let him try."  
"I don't think that's what he meant-"  
"He told me _you_ needed loosening up and that he thought we'd make a great team." She raised an eyebrow. "Care to reassess?"

Bertrand swallowed hard. Vlad wanted to set him up with Ingrid. He was with Erin, and he wanted the rest of his household to pair off just as nicely. Moreover, he wanted Bertrand to be what Ingrid needed; he'd said as much to Bertrand just minutes before. What did Ingrid need?  
"If he really thought we'd make a great team, surely he'd try to keep us apart in case we mutinied?"  
Ingrid smiled brightly. "Now you're thinking. There's that brain he keeps you around for."

He sighed. "What do _you_ think, Ingrid? Do I need loosening up?"  
She met his gaze without so much as a flicker of hesitation. "Almost certainly. And I could do with a little stress relief. What do you say?"  
Vlad's orders ringing in his ears, he bowed his head slightly, forcing the corners of his mouth upwards.  
"As you wish."


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. Dark angsty things. Try to enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, fortunately for the poor characters.**

Afterwards, they lay side by side, staring up at the darkness. It was a few moments – moments that felt like hours – before Ingrid spoke.  
"I prefer to sleep alone." She didn't say _please_; she didn't have to. Bertrand gathered his clothes, slipped them on and made his way to the door without a word.  
"Goodnight, Ingrid," he muttered as he pulled it shut behind him, knowing she would hear.

* * *

Vlad raised an eyebrow, emerging from his room at precisely the worst possible moment just as Bertrand closed Ingrid's door. The Chosen One looked as if he was contemplating something distasteful, but then he smiled tightly.  
"Well, you two don't waste any time." Bertrand frowned; on the contrary, it had been almost a week since Vlad had ordered this… _arrangement_ into being and until today they'd barely done anything about it. They'd both been busy; Bertrand had been making sure that Vlad's training took up as much time as it could and Ingrid seemed to have acquired piles of paperwork from nowhere, no doubt to cement her position as Vlad's number two.

Tonight, though, Vlad had demanded a night to watch breather films with his girlfriend, and Ingrid hadn't heard back from the clans she'd contacted, and they had run out of excuses. Bertrand had been swept up in the vampiress' boredom, and it was hard to imagine any situation in which he could be _more _powerless to resist.

* * *

Ingrid hadn't been opposed to the idea of sleeping with Bertrand. On the contrary; the man was attractive, intelligent, devious and ruthless. He wasn't _Will_ – her cold, dead heart clenched at the thought of his name – but he would do as a half-fang toy until a better prospect came along. She had rather thought Vlad might call dibs on him, but then he'd made that ludicrous comment about loosening his tutor up and she'd had permission to get her claws in.

She'd buried herself in paperwork for a week, something at the back of her mind pulling her away from Bertrand, as far as she could get, and for his part the tutor hadn't seemed exactly thrilled by the thought of her. Then they'd both run out of other diversions, and she'd let him know, through a variety of less-than-subtle means, that a little coffin gymnastics would not go unappreciated. It wasn't until they both lay, staring at the ceiling in the dark, that she realised what a tiny, dark corner of her heart had been trying to warn her all along. She had been sold again, auctioned off to the most convenient suitor for her male relatives.  
"I prefer to sleep alone." At least he had left without a fuss.


End file.
